


Who's the Damsel?

by perrysian



Series: Extraordinary [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Damsels in Distress, F/M, M/M, Multi, Reverse Damsel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 06:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perrysian/pseuds/perrysian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Side story for a superhero au where Marius fulfills his role as the Lois Lane/Jimmy Olsen character, but manages to flub it in all his Pontmercy glory. Meanwhile Cosette and Courfeyrac track down leads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who's the Damsel?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hawberries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawberries/gifts).



> This is a side note to an as-of-yet unposted fic where all in-sundry have super powers.
> 
> Cosette-- a Chinese-French woman who grew up in an Islamic household, has the ability to control wind patterns and lightning. Her abilities are vastly outpacing her control as they grow in strength, and she frequently causes freak weather formations without knowingly doing so.
> 
> Courfeyrac-- charming and friendly, he's very persuasive, though that persuasion is helped along with his abilities to influence others' decisions through his presence and with he's in contact with someone else, he takes full control, his will superseding their own. He wears gloves and long-sleeves at all times, which is easier in France's cold winter than it was in India when he was a child.
> 
> Marius-- as a freelance reporter, he's always looking for the next big scoop; lucky for him, his abilities to walk through walls, turn invisible, and hyper-speed all work in his favour, though he often gets in a bit more trouble than he intended when he's hunting the story, and not thinking of the consequences.
> 
> Éponine-- a young woman who's abilities invoke classic tales of nymphs and sirens, her abilities leave her slippery and spry; she most certainly knows her way through Paris' pipes, tunnels, and catacombs, spinning whirlpools from place to place, a dark figure seeming to walk between raindrops; but recently her connection with water and her self-doubt in her abilities has made it harder and harder to keep human form; can she take control before she looses herself the in flow of the Seine?

Cosette finds him on the corner of St Germain by the metro stop, hands pulling at his hair, and he’s shaking and shaken in a way she’d never expect to see from Courfeyrac. Even rarer, they were both dressed in street clothes, her in typical Parisian black, him in the beautiful mix he’s made of his own style influenced from India with bright, eye catching colours, and the targeted sophistication of the French couture. He looks gorgeously tortured, originally what caught her attention, fingers itching for her camera to capture it and keep it in her box of sacred moments.

Courfeyrac doesn’t notice her at first, lost in his own thoughts. It isn’t until she brushes his shoulder, the static electricity that surrounds her quite literally shocking him out of his trance, that he recognizes her company. He throws himself into her, and Cosette rocks back on her heels, his head all but buried in in her sternum, as short as he is.

“He’s gone,” is all Courfeyrac keeps repeating for a few minutes as Cosette cards her fingers through his long, curly hair. “Marius. He was taken; he was working on a piece, an exposé. I think they’ll kill him.”

Cosette takes him home, to his and Marius’ home – somewhere familiar and safe, that smells like the both of them, that has them in every used mug set carelessly aside, every carefully filed document, every half-stitched piece of fabric. Their home is Cosette’s favourite place because it feels like everyone’s home, safe and warm and carefully guarded. And someone reached into this home and stole away an integral part of it, took what wasn’t theirs to take.

“We’ll get him back. We’ll get him back alive and we’ll make them pay for taking him,” Cosette promises him, voice hard, hands soft as they ran over the cables of a partially knitted sweater, so very Courfeyrac in design, but so clearly created with Marius in mind. “Do you have any leads?”

“He was supposed to meet a new source,” Courfeyrac says, shooting up and running over to rifle through Marius’ desk. “He wrote down the information here somewhere.”

Cosette starts looking through the drawers, finding a soft orange datebook with butterfly stickers on the front. “Here?”

“Yeah.” Courfeyrac flips through the datebook, hands steadier now with a goal in mind. “Here it is. Gorbeau. There’s an address.”

Cosette nodded. “Let’s go.”

*

The landlady is incredibly suspicious of them – with good reason, considering her shop was a mess after a clear struggle. Courfeyrac takes her hand and Cosette can’t tell what extent he’s using his powers, if at all, but she tells them what they need in the end: Marius met a skulking gentleman in the parlour who associated with two tenants upstairs. It is the name that catches Cosette’s attention: Thénardier. When she drags him back outside, she keeps them moving, heading for the metro.

“I know where we have to go now.” Cosette runs for the train, trusting Courfeyrac to be right behind her.

“Where? Who are you thinking of?”

*

“Éponine.” Cosette called into the catacombs, where they’ve broken in. “Éponine, I know you’re angry with me, but this isn’t about us. Someone needs your help.”

“Who?” She calls out, but Cosette can’t place where her voice is coming from. It seems to reverberate from the dampness in the air itself, which, with Éponine’s abilities, isn’t unlikely.

“Marius.” The air stills around them, the grinning skulls holding their breath, and then Éponine forms herself from an overlooked puddle at Courfeyrac’s ankles, causing him to cry out in shock and jump back.

“Tell me what you need.”

*

Éponine takes them to a warehouse along the river, one of the more modern ones, but not modern enough to warrant attention or high volume. The closer they get, the more her nervousness builds, causing her body to shift in waves.

“I can’t go in with you,” she tells them, sounding frustrated. “If there’s a fight, and there will be, I could get in the way too much, especially if you bring down lightning, Cosette.”

“I apologized.” Cosette whips around, loose end of her hijab snapping with the movement, her scarf coming undone, almond eyes narrowing. “I don’t know what more I can do.”

“It still hurt.” Éponine’s brown eyes grew hard. “I don’t want your apology, I want you to take care with your power.”

Courfeyrac clears his throat, drawing attention back to the situation at hand, tying his hair back away from his tan face, expression pinched. “Shall we, mademoiselle?”

Cosette stirs up a wind, and blows the door in.

*

_A half-hour ago…_

Marius groaned, his head pounding. He squinted against the harsh light streaming in from the windows. His hands were chained above his head, holding him almost entirely off the ground, and his shoulders screamed agony, even as he wrapped his fingers around his bonds, lifting himself up in an attempt relieve pressure by balancing on his tip-toes.

Of course, that was when he was slapped across the face, upsetting his delicately won equilibrium. He spat blood onto the concrete.

“Who is your source?” The man, Babet, said. The one who’d brought him here against his will. Marius sneered, earning another backhand. “Who is your source?”

“No.” Marius grinned, blood in his teeth. He looked like a frightened animal, but a cornered animal was a vicious one. “You have it wrong. No one told me, I saw it myself.”

“How you could possibly do that?” Babet laughed; his buddy, slumped in a chair and sharpening a long knife, huffed.

Marius’ smile grew harsh. “Like this.” And with that, he disappeared from their vision, his wrists phasing through the chains in the same movement. Babet’s friend lurched to his feet, startled. Marius reappeared behind them and grabbed the chair. “Here!”

He hit one, then the other, quickening his movements for force. Once they fell unconscious, Marius tossed the chair aside.

Then the door blasted off the hinges.

*

Courfeyrac spares only half a second to glance over at the knocked-out men before he pulls a quaking, watery-eyed Marius into his arms. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor? We should call the police!”

Courfeyrac glares at Cosette when she rolls her eyes. “What will the police do, other than punish Marius for using his abilities? No, we leave them here, like this. You can convince them it never happened, like with the inspector a few months ago?”

Courfeyrac sighs, and kisses Marius’ cheeks, wiping his eyes with his thumbs. “I’ll only be second.”

Cosette rolls over the two crooks for Courfeyrac to access their temples. He pushes his own will into their unconscious minds one after the other, deceptively simple and thrilling in a way that always frightened him, but now leaves a burning satisfaction.

They hear Éponine shout from outside; then a scream, undeniably hers, before it was abruptly cut off. Marius makes for the door, but Cosette catches his arm and pushes him bodily towards Courfeyrac. “No! She can handle herself, we have to go!”

Courfeyrac feels sick, but they run for it, not stopping until they are all safely on the metro again, Marius glued between Cosette and Courfeyrac.

*

The house is comfortably quiet and warm when the three of them fall through the door, but the pinging from Cosette’s phone startles them. “She’s fine. She got away.”

Courfeyrac collapses onto the battered sofa in relief, pulling Marius’ gangly frame down on top of him, half in and half out of his jacket. Cosette crawls on top of Marius; Courfeyrac groans underneath their combined weight, sticking his tongue out at her when Cosette shushes him.

“Don’t do that again,” he says after a few minutes of safe silence.

“Don’t get snatched or don’t get myself out of the situation?” Marius jokes. Cosette taps him lightly in warning on the back of the head in warning.

“You know what we mean.”

“I can’t promise I won’t get into trouble, that’s the nature of what I do, and what I do is necessary,” Marius counters lowly, muttering into Courfeyrac’s neck.

“Just…don’t frighten me like that. You could’ve been dead, and we could have burst in there to find your body. What do you think that would do to us?” Cosette pulls on his ear. “You made Courfeyrac cry at the thought, you really want to leave me with the mess he’d be if you’d gone off and gotten yourself killed?”

Marius sits up enough that Cosette slides off of his back to Courfeyrac’s side. “Did you cry?”

“Yes. Of course, I did.” Courfeyrac smiles sadly. “I was dreading having to clean your side of the bedroom all by myself.”

Marius rolls his eyes and kisses him, then Cosette. “I’m fine.”

“This time.” Cosette grouses.

“This time I’m fine. I’m here, home, with the both of you.” Marius settles in, and they all begin to drift off, drained from the excitement of the day.

“Yeah. Home.”


End file.
